Tyrmyb
I heard about Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think by Steven Kotler and Peter Diamandis on some blog post and thought it was an intriguing idea. I am typically optimistic and think there has been so much progress made in civilization, and I was curious to hear why the authors of this book were optimistic too. The book was effectively a long catalog of many of the exciting technologies people have recently launched or are actively working towards across many fields such as robotics and medicine. It was nice from the one hand to hear about the many big problems facing the world and the different initiatives people are taking to fix them. But I found the book to be too descriptive of the current solutions and approaches, and so I think it will be quite dated in a few years. I would have preferred more detail on the actual problems because those are the entry points to real opportunities. Even though I expected a bit more depth to the various arguments and less cataloging of examples, it was still an interesting read. Preface Brains hardwired to focus on danger Media hype makes it hard for us to see good news Despite big problems in last hundred years all metrics of human life quality have bounded way up and will continue to do so Part 1: perspective Ch 1 our grandest challenge Scarcity of resources a matter of perspective and technology Story of aluminum DIY makers Techno philanthropists Billions coming online Ch 2 building the pyramid Bottom of pyramid of global needs Clean water Stopping disease will lower birth rate Middle of pyramid Energy, education, info, and communication Top of pyramid freedom and health Ch 3 seeing the forest through the trees Kahneman Heuristics and cognitive biases Amygdala hunting for bad news Probabilistic dangers never go away Brains not used to exponential steps of change Dunbar Ch 4 it's not as bad as u think Pessimism tendency Time is main resource to be saved Part 2 exponential technologies Ch 5 ray kurzweil Singularity university Ch 6 singularity is nearer Craig venter Biotech Vint Cerf Networks and sensors Artificial intelligence Thrun Robotics Pr2 Digital manufacturing and infinite cloud computing 3d printing Medicine Lab on a chip Reactive and generic medicine to predictive and personalized Nanomaterials and nanotechnology Nanobots Are you working on something that can change the world? Part three building the base of the pyramid Ch 7 tools of cooperation Info comm tech Ch 8 water Smart grid around water Information around use and waste Precision agriculture Sanitation, hasn't evolved in 150 years Ch 9 feeding 9 billion: failure of brute force Genetic engineering Aquaculture Part 4 forces for abundance Ch 10 DIY innovator Stuart brand Whole earth catalog Hacker ethic Power of small groups DIY bio Programming bio systems using DNA IGEM Ch 11 techno philanthropists Ch 12 the rising billion Selling to bottom of economic pyramid big opportunity Part 5 top of the pyramid Ch 13 energy Solar and wind power approaching grid parity Smart grid with storage more similar to Internet Every device that consumes power with IP address Generation 4 nuclear, fast burning Ch 14 education Learning needs to become addictive Pajama sam game Ch 15 healthcare Life span AI helping doctors diagnose and treat personally Ch 16 freedom Political action via social platforms Part 6 steering faster Ch 17 driving innovation faster Ratio of fear to curiosity Incentive prizes First Atlantic flight Longitude determination method Ch 18 risk and failure All breakthrough ideas seem crazy the days before they are proved Need to be a little crazy to want to change world and do it Getting comfortable with failure Ch 19 which way next Path of adjacent possible which opens with each breakthrough invention Afterword Next step